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#NoWar
Animated film.10:17
2022
This is a film about war, about any war. But I started working on this film when Russia attacked Ukraine
#NOWAR
No one could have imagined that on February 24 people in Kyiv would hide in the subway from rockets. It seemed crazy, but it became reality. Then cities were destroyed, and many people and children were killed… And people are still dying now...
A lot of children always die in war. Only adults create war. War is started by stupid adults who live without empathy, without intellect, without responsibility.
War always brings a lot of death and destruction.
"The technical development of the implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict". Hannah Arendt, On Violence
The film is called #nowar, because in Russia you can go to prison for 10 years for the phrase "No War". And this is not a dystopia, this is reality.
There is no more freedom of expression in Russia. There are repressions. And the government dreams of the death penalty. And if a person cannot express his opinion and cannot speak, this person begins to be afraid to think, and begins to avoid of own thoughts.
There is always a war somewhere. She is wearing a crown because war does not exist for life, but to satisfy the tyrant's ego, money or fame. Nobody wins in a war. War is always madness, death, and horror.
In this project, I have dialog with the Malevich painting "Red cavalry galloping from the October capital to defend the Soviet border." There are views that with this picture Malevich showed the senselessness of the Soviet revolutionary movement. In the picture, the red riders look lost between the infinitely indifferent sky and the multilayered earth. Ahead is emptiness, and there is nothing behind, and their path has no purpose, no meaning, no end, no edge.

Unfortunately, the time has come when old works that tell about destructive events become relevant today.

A human in a war is a runner. This runner rushes with all his might and crashes into the wall. Then the runner gets up and steps back and runs again. And the runner doesn't stop. He repeats the same thing until he loses all his strength to get up, or until he sees his own death. At the finish line, he will be either broken or dead.
I used Soviet music from the Second World War in my film. I played the music in reverse. These Soviet military songs are familiar to everyone who lives in Russia since childhood. It was a symbol of victory over fascism. But these songs need to be listened to backward these days. Militarism is the only thing that united us, and with these common concepts, we have come to a catastrophe.

From darkness to darkness... It became all the same. From war to war, as usual…
Shows and Exhibitions
  • Climate Cultures Festival. Climate Art and War. Berlin, Germany. 2022
  • Video program. A parallel program of the Climate Cultures Festival. Tbilisi. Georgia. 2022
  • Miami New Media Festival 2022
  • The SMCK On Reel special screening at the National Library of Romania 2022
  • SMCK On Reel in the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in Kyiv 2022
  • At the Museum of Applied Arts & Design in Vilnius 2022
  • During Grassimesse at Grassi Museum Leipzig. 2022
  • ‘Hear all Voices’ group exhibition. Treehouse NDSM. Amsterdam, Netherlands. 2023
  • Group Exhibition Flaming July in the Antizona space. Tbilisi, Georgia. 2023
Press publications:
Climate Cultures Festival: Gebt das Mikro ab!
Lenja Stratmann
2022
Berliner Zeitung
Wenn Müll die Identität bestimmt.
David Schmidt
2022
taz.de
Miami New Media Festival 2022 estrena 34 obras de video arte
2022
Diario Las Americas